


When Your Dreams All Fail

by Tegami



Series: Stiles Has Been a Demon All Along!AU [1]
Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Demon!Stiles, Exorcisms, Fluff and Angst, M/M, Panic Attacks, Scott McCall & Stiles Stilinski Friendship, Stiles Has Panic Attacks, Stiles Stilinski Has ADHD, Stiles is Pushed Out of the Pack, Stiles is a demon, Violence, nobody dies but well stiles is exorcised so if violence isn't yours pls avoid, not exactly but nearly, okay yes I probably forgot something
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-11-15
Updated: 2015-11-15
Packaged: 2018-05-01 19:04:22
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,606
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/5217233
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Tegami/pseuds/Tegami
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles allowed himself to try and sense for any signs that something might be actually wrong as he stood on the veranda. And holy shit, his sensing might not be comparable to a werewolf’s smelling sense, but the feelings of dread, nervousness and pure angst still flooded over him in painful waves.<br/>If Stiles hadn’t been so fast to slam the door open after that, he might have stopped and noticed how off the whole situation was, starting with the utter silence the house was in despite the presence of the pack.</p><p>OR the one where Stiles was a demon all along and he seriously should have told somebody, because when Peter is the first one to find out, stuff gets ugly real quick.</p>
            </blockquote>





	When Your Dreams All Fail

**Author's Note:**

> so this is pretty much a ton of angst and fluff surrounding stiles being a demon and being BFFs with scott. sterek is surprisingly only mentioned.  
> as always, thanks to my awesome friend who hasn't even watched teen wolf and still beta'd this. love you.  
> title is from imagine dragon's 'demons' because i'm lame and that song is just perfect okay.

Honestly, Stiles didn’t get why nobody had ever noticed that he’d been a demon all along. Well, sure. You couldn’t expect anything from Scott, puppy-eyed, trusting Scott. (Even though Stiles thought he could have become a little suspicious after that one time he’d basically made a bunch of guys beat him up while watching and laughing.) But considering how long they’d known each other and how that guy wouldn’t notice a train if he’d just been run over by it, Stiles was pretty sure that not even the smell of sulfur that must be radiating from him could have made Scott even consider doubting Stiles’s absolute humanness.  
The other werewolves were something different, especially Derek. The guy was a born werewolf, goddamn. You could trust Stiles with knowing what it was like to grow up with a supernatural sense of smell, and boy, must Derek be oblivious. Honestly, by the time that Stiles had smelled him and his werewolf-ness in that forest so long ago, he would have run if he wasn’t such a shitty runner. And up to that point he hadn’t even known that werewolves were a thing, for fuck’s sake!  
But no, aside of a good amount of bruises from being slammed into things - Stiles still hadn’t figured out why he, the fragile ‘human’, was apparently the only target for this -, Derek hadn’t done _shit_.  
And somehow, this was even worse. Because sometimes, recently more times, Stiles found himself wondering. If Derek did know, then what? What if he had more behind those eyebrows of his than he’d accounted him for and all of this was part of some bigger plan? These thoughts were mostly the result of Stiles not taking his Adderall, but they didn’t feel any less real. That Derek gave him these _looks_ lately didn’t help, either.  
Stiles also kept trying to think back to a time before all of this. Obviously, he hadn’t been inside this vessel for all of his life - if you could call it that. But he just, he just couldn’t remember.  
He still _knew_ a few things, on the other hand. He knew that he’d had a life before this. He knew that he hadn’t always been an ADHD driven lanky kid. He knew that he’d lived far too long in a place where everybody would sooner or later choose any life they could get, as long as it wasn’t there. He knew that it wasn’t normal for him to be here, that he’d only managed to escape with dirty tricks whose mere sound would have made Scott wince in disgust. And, most importantly, he knew how lucky he was to be here.  
There’d been a time where he hadn’t allowed himself to be happy for this life, because what did it cost others? He’d exploited the care and love of a young couple for his second chance at life and there still wasn’t a time when he didn’t feel guilty for this. He was a demon, sure. But sometimes, he felt like nothing more than a ball of anxiety and restlessness trapped inside fragile human skin.  
By now, though, he could mostly live with his choices. Because if he hadn’t taken the body of that new born, broken thing? His parents would have given up on getting children, they’d told him that. And then what? Their lives would have continued, they’d been happy either way.  
But then, there’d been the diagnosis, and the hospital stays, and bills, and the funeral, and, worst of all, a life without his wife for Stiles’s father.  
No matter how often he imagined how things would have turned out, he didn’t yet come up with a version where his dad made it out in a state that was as good as this. And with that, Stiles was neither boasting or being negative. He was being realistic.

So, he’d been okay with his life. Awesomely okay, even. Everything was better than hell, that was for sure.  
But of course, there was always a catch, because happy lives just weren’t a thing made for Stiles.

 

Stiles loved pack meetings. It was basically just another word for hanging out with your friends, especially after that one time that Derek called a meeting and stated as purpose that he had ‘accidentally’ bought too many snacks to eat them all alone. It’d been nice to know that he actually wanted them to be around his house. Well, they’d all suspected it anyway, but with Derek, you could never know.  
But most importantly, he’d started a wave of more and more ridiculous becoming reasons for pack meetings. Stiles favorite so far had been Scott’s “I think my ukulele is possessed, please help”. He’d actually been surprised that Scott had been witty enough to come up with it until they’d all gotten there and it’d turned out that Scott had been completely serious.  
Eventually, these reasons had turned into a huge competition that no one was willing to lose and Stiles was pretty sure he was winning.  
Because of this, the text message Derek sent into the pack’s group chat one Saturday afternoon was even more concerning.

_Wolfy McGrumpyguy: Pack meeting. Now._

Stiles immediately wiggled himself out of the pillow pile he’d pretty much been buried under since Friday evening. While he closed his laptop and tripped only four times on his way to his door, he tapped an answer into his phone.

_whats up? i rlly hope for all of u that its worth disturbing my disney marathon_

By the time Stiles parked his Jeep in front of the Hale House, he still hadn’t gotten an answer. That kind of hurt, if he was honest. Sure, it hadn’t been his best one yet, but in the very least, he’d have expected a ‘Haha xD’ from Scott, bless his soul. But actually, getting sulky was all he could do to not think about how maybe the situation was serious enough for his message to be tasteless. Stiles might have been immortal, but his friends sure weren’t.  
As he headed into the house, he counted Lydia’s, Jackson’s and Scott’s car. Boyd and Erica usually just ran through the wood or what the hell, appeared in some dark corner probably, but they were never late. So Stiles, the weak, slow human, was the last again. Hooray on not having any wolfy super speed.  
Stiles allowed himself to try and sense for any signs that something might be actually wrong as he stood on the veranda. And holy shit, his sensing might not be comparable to a werewolf’s smelling sense, but the feelings of dread, nervousness and pure angst still flooded over him in painful waves.  
If Stiles hadn’t been so fast to slam the door open after that, he might have stopped and noticed how off the whole situation was, starting with the utter silence the house was in despite the presence of the pack.  
But he didn’t. He burst through the never-locked door - he felt sorry for every human who would ever try to break into Derek’s house and everything else wouldn’t be stopped by a simple door lock -, shouting “Dad’s home!”, in an effort to make it seem like any other day despite his thumping heart, and ran into a wall.  
It took Stiles a few moments of x-rated cursing to realize how this didn’t make any sense. He hadn’t even really gotten into the house yet and there sure as hell hadn’t been a wall the last time he’d been there.  
Only then did he lower the hands that had been clutched over his nose and look up.  
No wall there. Instead, he was looking into five shocked, but silent faces. No Boyd, no Erica, for whatever reason. “What the-”, he started, but when he tried to move forward again, his hand hit a barrier that was apparently just kind of floating in front of him. But, how-  
Oh. Stiles could feel his own eyes widen. Painfully aware of his friends surrounding and watching him, he let the hand resting on the barrier slide to both sides, and sure enough, it was a circle. More precisely, it was a trap.  
He thought, maybe, if I don’t check the ceiling, they will believe that I have no idea what is happening. Whether it was his exhaustion from telling everybody around him lies ever since his birth or how long it’d been since Stiles had seen a demon trap, he didn’t know. But he still looked up. And, of course, it was a demon’s trap.  
Stiles didn’t remember the last time that he’d been trapped, but he knew that it hadn’t been this awful. Maybe it was how he knew what his friends were seeing, but he could feel how his eyes almost itched in desperation to be covered by blackness. And as much as he despised thinking of himself as anything other than human, he could still feel how his instincts rebelled against being trapped, but still being without any protection. He was just grateful that he’d slammed the door hard enough for it to have bounced back closed.  
He didn’t want to look at anybody, really. So, as unnatural it felt, he looked at his feet and waited for somebody to talk. Meanwhile, he also let his arms fall down to his sides uselessly. While his demonic side applauded him for playing the role of the vulnerable frightened kid, he wanted to scream back at it, _I AM the vulnerable frightened kid._  
But nobody started talking. Stiles forced his gaze away from his poorly done shoelaces and up to what was before him. The second glance didn’t make him feel in any way better, obviously. The expressions varied from pure shock (Scott) over frustration and anger (Derek) to unconcealed fury (Lydia). They were waiting for him to say something, he noted numbly and swallowed.  
“So… Crazy, huh?”, was everything his panicking brain came up with. But apparently, this was enough to break the ice.  
At once, everyone began talking. Stiles actually flinched back against the trap, as everybody seemed to come a little closer and talk/shout/scream at him. He didn’t understand most, but what he did was enough for a lifetime of guilt, as if that wasn’t his fate already anyway. Let’s just say that there were a lot of “What the fuck”s and “Get out of Stiles”s involved, as well as a whole bunch of frighteningly creative curses.  
And then there was Scott. Scott didn’t say anything. Scott didn’t even move. But Stiles didn’t have to be psychic to know what the waves of panic radiating from him meant. Obviously, there was his best friend standing in front of him, or what _looked_ like his best friend, but this wasn’t _him_. He couldn’t do anything to Stiles because it was _Stiles_ , goddamn, so he was forced to stand and just watch and wonder how long he’d been sharing his secrets with a monster.  
It was a sick kind of funny, really, how this was still better than the truth, that Stiles was still Stiles, but that he wasn’t what he had claimed to be, he had tried to be. That he was the monster.  
Stiles supposed that that was why he didn’t say anything, didn’t look at anybody, no matter how weird it was to actually see Derek flipping his shit openly. He also didn’t want to think about what that meant. So he just stared at Scott, as painful as it might have been. _I deserve this_ , he thought.

Thus, the whole situation was only disturbed by laughter coming from the kitchen doorway. It was so off that everybody shut up at once and Stiles let Scott win this staring contest as they all turned towards Peter, who was just coming into the room. Stiles literally couldn’t believe how he hadn’t noticed his presence before.  
“Wow”, he laughed while walking - no, _striding_ \- into the middle of the room, “How about we just keep calm, kids.” He positioned himself between Stiles and Scott, which struck Stiles as incredibly stupid and incredibly annoying at the same time.  
He noted that this was probably the best moment to try and say anything in his defense, because Peter just always meant bad news. “Okay guys, this is totes fun and all, but please let me out. C’mon, it’s me. Stiles.” He gestured to himself, but then started again. “Okay, I just realized that that’s exactly what somebody would say who isn’t Stiles. But-”  
Stiles nervous laugh was cut off by Peter. “Yeah. This is all extremely heartbreaking et cetera et cetera, but after boasting that I was right and even though you didn’t believe me you were still wrong, I’m going to make it short, I swear. So, here we go: I was right and you all didn’t believe me, but you were still wrong. Alright, I feel better now. You”, he waved a crumbled piece of paper in front of Scott’s face until he took it, “read this. Oh, and everybody else, better don’t watch.” Nobody turned away, even though Scott looked like he wanted to run.  
Even though he couldn’t remember one word from it, Stiles immediately knew what was written on the piece of paper and couldn’t help but step forward, even though he hit hit knee painfully against the trap, and say: “No! Oh my God this is such a bad idea, guys. Scott, please, listen to me! If you read this shit, y’all are going to have a dead fucking kid lying here because you’ll be exorcising _me_.”  
While this didn’t even make Derek flinch, it made Scott open his mouth for the first time, both in shock and to say: “You killed him?!”  
Before Stiles could respond, Derek practically growled at him and said: “Don’t listen to that thing.” He was standing next to Scott and staring at the writing now. In Peter’s direction, he asked: “Why does he have to read it?”  
As much as Stiles wanted to believe that Derek was simply being the alpha, he couldn’t help but notice the relieve that Derek was feeling. Relieve that it wasn’t him who had to read it.  
Don’t think about this now, Stiles thought. Don’t. That’s for later. Because there will be a later. Of course.  
Peter shrugged. “His latin’s the best”, he said, but again, the dangerous glint in his eyes that showed how much he enjoyed this was another thing. Oh, that bastard. Scott’s latin was absolutely horrible, he knew that from a drunk night some months ago with the weirdest party games he’d ever played. But then again, nobody in this room could pronounce latin properly, so it’s not as if they knew. Even Lydia had never taken Latin class.  
“Scott, no, what do you think I am?”, Stiles tried again, “Okay, no, don’t answer that. The guy in here”, he tapped a little too forcefully with too shaky fingers against his breastbone, “wasn’t ever alive. I’m-” He couldn’t do this. Stiles felt his own breaths coming shorter and shorter and the panic overtake his brain. He was too jittery to concentrate, but he had to, because if he couldn’t, he’d end up way too far south than would be good for him.  
So, Stiles gave in and let the shadows fall over his eyes, trying to ignore several sharp breaths that were being drawn in from the others. The wave of relief that went through him at once, though, and the feeling of getting enough air again, made it easy to overlook them.  
God, he hated demon’s traps.  
“Let’s start again. Demon here. Obviously. But”, he said before anybody could interrupt him, “also _Stiles_ here. Guys, look. You’ll hate me after this either way because yeah, I’ve been lying to you basically forever, but I’d rather that you hate me and I’m not in fucking hell. Because I’m Stiles, and I’m a- demon, and I’ve always been one.”  
Stiles breathed and was just ready to basically repeat everything again, when Peter - fucking _Peter_ \- laughed. “Scott, please take me out of my misery. Let’s just exorcise him and everybody can go home.”  
“No offense”, Jackson commented and Stiles could already tell that what he’d say would be offensive, “but I don’t believe it, either. I mean, what the hell’s up with his eyes?”  
“Hey, I didn’t choose to be trapped in here. I’ve got a mental list of, like, a thousand places I’d rather be right now. Hell”, Stiles pointed at Scott, “being not one of them.”  
Scott just looked at him for a while. Then, swallowing visible, he began to stutter: “Exorcizamus te, omnis immundus spiritus, omnis satanica protestas, omnis incursio infernalis adversarii, omnis legio, omnis congregatio et secta diabolica.”  
Stiles had never been exorcised, that much he knew. He liked to think that he’d always been cunning enough not to run into a dumb painting, but that was obviously over now. Honestly, he didn’t even remember seeing anybody being exorcised in his whole life, either. But the memory of the state the exorcised demons had been in once they reached hell was enough not to be too sad about it.  
The thing was, Stiles had never thought about how the actual exorcising part went. Well, as he broke down onto the floor while trying not to literally scream or puke his soul out, he did.  
“Ergo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica. Erfo draco maledicte et omnis legio diabolica adjuramus te.”  
Scott didn’t even look up. Well, Stiles didn’t think he’d done it, either. He could think of a whole shit ton of fun Saturday afternoon activities with your friends, but making them convulse on the floor and scream in pain probably wasn’t one of them.  
“Cessa decipere humanas creaturas, eisque aeternae perditionis venenum propinare. Vade, Satana, inventor et magister omnis fallaciae, hostis humanae salutis.”  
But Scott needed to look at him. He needed to see how it were Stiles’s hands shaking uncontrollably and clutching at nothing, not those of a monster.  
So, Stiles let go. He let go and screamed his brain out. He could literally feel how his soul was forcefully loosened from his body, only that it felt like a limb was being ripped out, so all he had to do was to stop holding back. He screamed at nothing, at first, just to relieve some of the tension that had built up. It didn’t help with anything, really, and Scott only stumbled over his words a little as Allison turned away.

So instead, Stiles tried to form words. He was more or less successful, but he hoped that his stammering could still be understood.  
“Scott, it’s me! Scott- Scott, bro, look at me-” He stopped in order to throw something like black goo up on the floor that he tried not to look at too closely. He wished he knew how much of the exorcism was still left.  
“Humiliare sub potenti manu dei, contremisce et terribili nomine, quem inferi tremunt. Cularcultor lotiolontus, vomica crassus palinarius fungus, scortum en sociofraudus. Carcinoma amasiuncula. Portentum hominis, mentula.”  
“You’re killing me, you’re killing- Stiles, alright? Oh god, you’re going to- you’re gonna-” And with that, he gave up. Not only did his words obviously do shit, but even if he wanted to go on, he couldn’t open his mouth without worrying about his soul leaving his body. So, he clenched his teeth together and tried not to shake too terribly against the floorboards.  
“Tarribilis Deus de sanctuario suo. Deus Israhel ipse truderit virtutem et fortitudinem plebie Suae. Benedictus deus. G- Gloria-”  
Stiles forced himself to open his eyes as Scott stopped. One word. One fucking word was left, Stiles somehow knew, and at this point, he just wanted it to be fucking over. As much as the thought of what would happen after he’d be gone let his insides clench, the feeling of them being shredded into pieces had become simply unbearable long ago.  
Everybody was just looking at Scott. Lydia was crying, Stiles noted numbly, but Allison wasn’t. Scott had not once looked up from his paper, but now, he lifted his head and looked directly into Stiles’s eyes. He was crying, too, and Stiles wanted to scream at him to just finish it, but he couldn’t, and Scott didn’t. That was when Derek, who was still standing next to Scott, looked down on the paper and said with firm voice: “Patri.”  
Stiles’s mouth opened, but he wasn’t sure if the exorcism made him do it or if he moved it himself in anticipation of the agony to stop.  
And nothing came out.  
In the contrary: Stiles’s whole body stopped trembling, his insides stopped convulsing. In fact, except of being covered in black goo, Stiles felt pretty great. Sure, the trap was still tugging at both his eyes and instincts, but in contrary to the whole shit-I-wish-I-was-in-fucking-hell-already-feeling from before? Heaven.  
So, Stiles let the shadows over his eyes fall away despite the effort it took, and sat up. Everybody was just staring at him, Peter with a smirk, everybody else in anticipation. “Am I the only one here who’s confused as fuck about what just happened, or…?”  
With that, the tension seemed to bleed out of all of them at once. Lydia furiously rubbed at her face, while Scott let the crumbled piece of paper just fall on the ground. Scott grinned and said: “Thank God, he’s back.”  
They don’t know, he realized. They don’t know it didn’t work.  
Just for one blissful second, Stiles thought about just going with it. He could play the rescued kid, maybe cry a little - he certainly felt like it -, and go on with the life he’d become comfortable with. Hang out in this house, run through the forest a little, bicker with Derek, actually think about what it meant for him to look as relieved as he did, have gaming nights with Scott.  
But then he remembered: He was still trapped. He was still trapped and there was no way to explain how the clumsy human Stiles couldn’t walk out of it. Stiles suddenly felt even more like crying, because he had to tell them.  
He shook his head. “Guys, no. It didn’t work. No idea why, but it didn’t. Still here.” He let his eyes flash black for just one blink, which was hard, but it was harder to see their expressions fall. “With which I mean that _Stiles_ is still here. For what you should be grateful, even though I seriously do not have any idea what just happened. But I swear to God, Scott, if you try and read that again, I’m gonna come out of here and kick your butt. Your latin’s literally so terrible.” The only person who laughed was Peter. Stiles did his best to glare at him, but it made it too hard to control his eyes, so he stopped. Also, it didn’t really add points to his humanness-scale.  
Derek growled at Peter, though. “Why the hell didn’t it work?!”, he said in something like a mix between a stage whisper and hissing. It only made Peter laugh harder, though.  
“You know what?”, Allison suddenly said and stepped forward as she drew her gun. “I’m sick of this.” She pointed it at the ceiling above Stiles and shot.  
Stiles didn’t have to look up to see that she hit the trap. For one, Allison was the best shot he’d ever seen. Also, the relief washing through his body at feeling completely human again - well, as human as he remembered one could -, was enough to tell by. He actually sighed in relief.  
Everybody else, though, screamed varying versions of “No!” and “What the fuck!” and shot with super human speed in Stiles’s direction. He barely had enough time to bring up his arms and knees to protect his head in expectation for the impact.  
But there was none. As a few seconds had passed with nothing but the feeling of the ceiling trickling down on him, Stiles dared to remove one of his arms enough to look up to his friends.  
They were all standing around him including Allison, some more wolfed out than others, staring. God, if Stiles had ever felt invisible as teenager, he sure got enough attention now.  
Scott looked up to the ceiling, but, sure enough, the trap was broken. When he looked back at Stiles, he was almost human again. “Why aren’t you leaving?”, he asked.  
And with that, Stiles asked himself the same question. He came up with a whole lot of witty answers to voice out loud, but just this time, he went for the truth. Drastic times demanded drastic measures.  
“Where would I go?”, he said. Because if he went home, they’d at least send one person to look. And in order to go anywhere else, he’d have to leave his dad on his own and also accept that they would tell him. He could start a new life, sure. But he’d never wanted any other life than this one.  
What he didn’t tell them, though, was how many years it’d been since he’d last used his awesome vanish-and-appear-powers. After a rather disturbing incident in grade school with his music teacher, he’d decided that it was just too risky that he could never be sure if there wouldn’t somebody be there to see him where he would appear.  
Since there was still nobody moving, Stiles dared to stand up. He tugged his shirt away from his skin where it stuck disgustingly with black goo. He still had no interest in knowing what it was and how it’d been inside of him.  
“I told y’all”, he said. “It’s me. I’ve inherited this body when it was a new born and about to die, anyway. I’ve never left it. I’m Stiles.” He couldn’t help but direct most of his words in Scott’s direction. Even though he felt like it was as important to him for Derek to hear them, the familiarity of Scott was just too comforting.  
Scott swallowed visibly. “Did you ever kill somebody?”, he asked, and Stiles should have seen this coming. Scott, pure and loyal Scott, always on his search for the good in people.  
Stiles gave him the best answer he could. “Not in this life”, he said, because he didn’t remember the details, but he knew that everything else would be a lie.  
It seemed to be enough for Scott, though, because despite the mess that was Stiles, it made him step forward and wrap him in a hug that knocked the air out of him. But for Stiles, it was like he could breath again for the first time in ages. “Sorry”, he said, because it needed to be said.  
“It’s okay, I guess”, Scott said, which made Stiles snort. “Me, too.”  
As Stiles opened his eyes, he saw over Scott’s shoulder how Peter was still laughing silently and making weeping motions with his hands. With a flick of his wrist, Stiles pinned him again a wall, hard enough to knock the air out of his lungs just a little bit. The look of horror on his face was pure gold.  
Everybody made sounds either of disbelief or laughter or both, which made Scott let go and try to turn and see what had happened. “Wha-”  
But Stiles just tightened his arms around him a little and stage whispered: “Don’t, Scott. Don’t ruin the moment we’re having.”  
“I hate you”, Scott said, but didn’t try any harder to get free.  
“I know”, Stiles said, and pressed Peter just a little bit harder against the wall.

**Author's Note:**

> and then they have a talk about how friends don’t lie to each other and what a demon even exactly is. (”stiles are you fucking serious do you know how often we've saved your life and now you're telling us yOU WOULDN'T EVEN HAVE DIED ANYWAYS”)
> 
> also, if you’re wondering, the exorcism didn’t work because peter just added a whole fucking list of curse words in the end because he just wanted to test if they would do it because he was bored. it’s been some time since i’ve had latin, but it should be “ass-kisser, tosser, boil, fat ass, glutton, airhead, whore, cancerous ulcer, slut, monstrous miscarriage, dick”. yes, i had that kind of teacher. and yes, i’m lame.
> 
> find me on tumblr @ayylienboy.  
> comments are so fricking helpful you have no idea.


End file.
